Overmountain Victory Trail Association (OVTA)
OUTREACH
- OVTA, in partnership with the National Park Service (NPS), provided programing for 50,000 members of the public in 2018 along the 330 mile trail corridor. Of those, approximately 75 percent were school students. The trail corridor passes through the four State region of Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee, Western North Carolina and Northern South Carolina, which is considered to have a large percentage of underserved population.
- Held major annual interpretive outreach efforts, including the Annual March to Kings Mountain (from mid-September to mid-October) and year-round programming, which are supported by funding with an NPS Cooperative Agreement, National Park Foundation funding and through OVTA volunteers.
- NPS partnered with three certified sites to develop new informational and interpretive panels and installed them along the trail.
PROTECTION
- NPS hosted its second Youth Conservation Corps program for the Overmountain Victory NHT, with a crew of four youth and one crew leader. The crew maintained over ten miles of trail, rerouted two miles for better sustainability, and constructed two footbridges over drainages.
- NPS developed a complete inventory of all certified trail segments and constructed trail segments to help managers understand the landowner status of segments across the trail corridor.
CAPACITY
- NPS hired an intern for a four-month term through a grant from PNTS. The intern assisted NPS and OVTA during the Annual March programs, and set up the materials for a mobile app for the trail.
- NPS hired a consultant to speak with the NPS and the OVTA on techniques to help partners grow in capacity, develop a stronger board, and achieve better mission-oriented results.
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OVTA Annual March participants. Photo Credit: RG Absher.
OVTA fires a volley during the Annual March. Photo Credit: RG Absher.
